Spain in 2005

Area:

505,988 sq km (195,363 sq mi)

Population

(2005 est.): 44,079,000

Capital:

Madrid

Chief of state:

King Juan Carlos I

Head of government:

Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero

Thousands of Spanish students demonstrate in Madrid on December 14 against a plan by the Socialist government to make religious education optional in state schools.Philippe Desmazes—AFP/Getty ImagesOn Feb. 20, 2005, Spaniards became the first Europeans to vote in a referendum on the proposed EU constitution. The overwhelming “yes” vote (77%) came as no surprise in a country that had long been one of the largest net recipients of EU funds, where support for European integration had always been high, and where all of the major parties supported the constitutional text. The very predictability of the result and a lacklustre campaign, however, helped keep participation down to a mere 42% of the electorate, the lowest turnout at the polls in Spain’s recent democratic history.

The European referendum constituted a rare instance of political consensus during a year in which the conservative Popular Party (PP) headed a series of demonstrations against the governing Socialist Party’s policies. On two of these occasions, the PP enjoyed the support of the Roman Catholic Church. Twenty bishops joined hundreds of thousands of demonstrators in the streets of Madrid in protest against same-sex marriage, but it was nevertheless legalized on June 30. In November some 500,000 people joined church and PP leaders to protest alleged antireligious and pro-public-school biases in the Socialists’ educational reforms.

The government breathed a sigh of relief in the wake of regional elections in the Basque Country in April. The centre-right Basque Nationalists regained power—but without sufficient support in the regional assembly to press ahead with controversial plans to move unilaterally toward semi-independence through “freely associated state” status with Spain. Hopes also spread of an end to almost four decades of violence at the hands of the armed Basque separatist organization Euzkadi Ta Askatasuna (ETA). While the organization continued its campaign of low-intensity urban warfare, the year ended without any fatalities (the last of more than 800 victims of ETA attacks since 1968 died in May 2003). Several developments provided grounds for cautious optimism, including unconfirmed reports of contacts between the Socialists and ETA, ambiguous but favourable statements by the organization’s banned political wing, Batasuna, and a parliamentary declaration inviting negotiations with ETA if it definitively abandoned the armed struggle. The PP led demonstrations in January and June in support of the victims of terrorism and in opposition to any idea of dialogue with ETA.

The real headache for Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, however, involved Catalonia, where the Socialist-dominated regional parliament approved a major overhaul of the statute of autonomy. Accepted for consideration by the Madrid parliament in November, the text defined Catalonia as “a nation” and provided for a substantial increase in self-government and fiscal independence for the region. The problem was that the text was considered unconstitutional by many Spaniards and unacceptable by many more, including a number of Zapatero’s own ministers. Intense efforts continued at the end of the year to come up with a text that would satisfy both the Socialists and the Catalan proponents of the proposal. Most analysts attributed the Socialists’ dramatic slump in opinion polls to widespread hostility both to the proposal and to Zapatero’s vacillating handling of the issue.

In the international arena, the Socialists made halfhearted attempts to patch up relations with the U.S., which had been severely strained after Spanish troops were pulled out of Iraq in April 2004. The government dispatched a stream of senior ministers to Washington and more troops to join NATO peacekeeping forces in Afghanistan, where 17 Spanish soldiers died in a helicopter crash in August. Any goodwill generated by these gestures, however, was offset by the active role that Spain played in persuading the EU to reestablish normal diplomatic relations with Cuba, by its signing of a high-profile arms deal with the government of Hugo Chávez in Venezuela, and by Zapatero’s championing of an “Alliance of Civilizations.” Conceived as an alternative to the U.S.-led war on terrorism, the Spanish initiative advocated dialogue and cooperation between the world’s major religions and political powers as the only effective long-term solution to international conflict and violence.

It was a year of celebrations for the Spanish royal family. The 30th anniversary of the coronation of King Juan Carlos in November came just weeks after Crown Princess Letizia gave birth to her first child, a daughter, Leonor. While Spain’s 1978 constitution allowed a woman to inherit the throne only if she had no brothers, a broad consensus immediately emerged in support of a constitutional amendment that would one day enable Leonor to succeed her grandfather and father, Crown Prince Felipe, even if she were to have younger male siblings.